


eudaimonia

by forochel



Series: eudaimonia [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Post-Series, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3805858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Nico watched Percy wave his arms excitedly at Annabeth and breathed through the habitual twisting of his stomach. For a moment, he thought of walking over to them - ever the masochist, he thought wryly to himself - but then Annabeth threw her head back in a laugh, and Nico dismissed the thought. There would be another time and another place.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>**</p><p>Diverges SLIGHTLY from canon in that Nico does not confess to Percy right off the bat - he gets the chance to heal, find himself and a place to stand in camp, and form friendships. Also, attempts to fix the whole Solangelo shoehorning thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eudaimonia

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to [p-s](http://princess-siddnttety.tumblr.com/) for being a soundboard, popping up every so often to remind me to work on this, and giving this the 'ole once-over. Sorry it's taken me like SIX MONTHS to finish this part.

Nico watched Percy wave his arms excitedly at Annabeth and breathed through the habitual twisting of his stomach. For a moment, he thought of walking over to them - ever the masochist, he thought wryly to himself - but then Annabeth threw her head back in a laugh, and Nico dismissed the thought. There would be another time and another place. 

Turning back, he found Will looking at him with a raised eyebrow. The butterflies in his stomach, which had crumbled in the split second he’d turned away from Will, stirred to life again. Nico resisted the urge to hold a hand over his abdomen; doubtlessly, Will would take that to mean Nico had sustained some sort of upper body injury and whisk him off to the infirmary before Nico could blink.

“He’s too energetic for this time of the day,” Nico said as grumpily as he could. 

Will blinked at him, outrage growing on his face. “For _this time of the day_?”

“It’s six thirty! Normal people should still be sleeping - ”

“Oh, and were _you_?”

“Well -”

“And I’ve been up since gods know when, and you’re complaining about _this time of the day_?” 

Nico eyed him -- now that he was looking closely, Will was looking a little grey around the edges. “You might be the one who needs a three day rest.”

“Ha!” Will snorted, sounding a little hysterical. “Not with all the demigods who need healing and the ... lack of healers.” His voice trailed off towards the end, and he looked down at his slippered feet. Nico thought about the golden shrouds he’d performed funeral rites for, and felt a weight settle in the pit of his stomach. 

“I’ll come to the infirmary,” he promised. “But I have to see my sister - and Reyna - off first.”

Will looked back up, smile back on his face. Nico did him the courtesy of pretending it wasn’t strained. “Yeah,” said Will airily. “Sure. And make sure you get a shower too. You smell like funeral pyre.”

*

Hazel was sitting up, cross-legged, on her bed when Nico got out of their cabin’s bathroom. She grinned at him. “You look very Hecate, like that.”

“I look very ... Hecate?” 

“Yeah, with the steam all around you, towel like a ... whatsitcalled, a _chiton_.” 

Nico huffed out a laugh. “And here I was, trying to protect your modesty.” He went to the chest that lay crosswise at the foot of his coffin-bed hybrid (seriously, he had to redo the interior decorating as soon as he left the infirmary) and knelt before it, hefting it open. 

There was the sound of rustling cloth, and the thump of bare feet onto the floor. Nico smiled to himself at that; only the children of Hades could comfortably walk with unshod feet on this floor. Then the smile disappeared: soon his would be the only bare feet to tread these tiles. 

“Hey,” Hazel sat down next to him. “I’ll come visit as soon as I can. And you’ll visit too, won’t you?”

Nico’s groping fingers finally grasped cotton and rough denim. He sat back on his heels, hugging his t-shirt and jeans to himself. “As often as I can.”

“You’re hedging, brother,” Hazel said evenly. 

“As soon as I can shadow travel again,” Nico said, and then scowled, holding his arm out. “Though who knows when that will be.” 

“Don’t push yourself, Nico,” Hazel said. Her eyebrows were furrowed when he looked at her. “You’ve been doing it for so long. Just ... rest now, all right? I can wait.”

Nico smiled wryly. “I’ve been ordered to three days of bed rest in the infirmary, so you needn’t worry about that, at least.”

“Good!” said Hazel emphatically. “But -- three days only?”

“Gods, Hazel! Don’t say that too loud -- Will Solace might hear you.” 

The joke fell flat, as Hazel sat back on her haunches to peer at him. Her eyes were piercing in the dimness of their cabin. “Will Solace, huh?”

“He’s a menace,” said Nico, and started tugging his shirt over his head, fiercely ignoring the resurrecting butterflies in his stomach. When he re-emerged from the shirt, Hazel was still giving him that look. 

“He’s a very good healer,” Hazel observed, running a palm subconsciously along the pale, silvery scar where a wild centaur’s spatha had cut her thigh. Healed by Will, Nico assumed. 

“I barely even know him!” Nico protested - the butterflies were feeling a little less fluttery and more panicked, at this point. He hadn’t paid attention to them - hadn’t had time to pay much attention to them during the battle, and was more accustomed to squashing his feelings than dealing with them.

Hazel reached out and covered his flailing hands with her own, smaller ones. “Yes,” she agreed, “you barely even know him.” Her tone was soothing, but the words measured like she was assigning a specific weight to each of them. Nico had curled up with her atop the mast one night, after the mess with Cupid, and had talked. It’d been easier, the second time, when it hadn’t been forced but a decision of his own making. Easier when it’d been to someone whom he had faith in, and whose faith in him he’d never had cause to doubt. He’d worried, a little, at the start -- but then Hazel had chuckled and said, “I grew up in New Orleans in the 1930s, brother,” and Nico had, while not understanding, taken that for the acceptance it was.

“I know, I know,” Nico tilted his face up to the ceiling and blew out a long breath. “It’s not the same ... _I’m_ not the same. I won’t make the same mistakes again, but ... come on, Hazel, I’m not blind either.”

A wicked grin bloomed on Hazel’s face, her golden-hazel eyes dancing. “He is very much a son of Apollo, isn’t he?” 

Nico groaned, but the butterflies bursting out of his ribcage felt a lot more like relief. 

*

“So,” Reyna said, looking down at him. “Bed-rest, huh?”

Nico gave Hazel a look, one of _et tu, Hazel_? but she only smiled back at him. 

“Yes,” said Nico. “You should get some too. I hear it’s good for you.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve had sleep, Nico, unlike some people I might mention.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m going to get my sleep now, all right? I’m being forced into it.”

Reyna tactfully didn’t mention that it was unlikely for anyone to force Nico into doing anything unless he was on the brink of death, and looked over at the Big House, where a lanky figure in surgeon’s green and blue jeans was lounging against one of the columns. As if Nico was going to up and leave with the Romans in one of their SUVs. Come to think of it ... 

He was roused from his thoughts by Reyna’s snort. “Mike tells me that Will Solace was with you, at the end. With Octavian.” 

Nico ducked his head. “Yeah.” 

“Hey,” Reyna reached out and tipped his chin back up. “It was unavoidable. And if a healer does nothing ...” 

“Maybe,” Nico said. 

Reyna sighed, before stepping forward and pulling him into a hug - the second one in as many days. Nico might die of shock. “You’ll get better,” she whispered fiercely into his ear, before letting him go.

Hazel was next, and then Frank shook his hand, and then the Roman contingent were off, up over Half-Blood Hill to where their SUVs were waiting. 

Nico watched until Hazel’s hair disappeared under the peak of the hill, and then turned and trudged towards the Big House, hands in his pockets.

“Wow,” Will said sarcastically as Nico got nearer. “Don’t look like you’re entering Elysium or anything.”

Brushing past Will to get into the infirmary, Nico looked around: a wide, airy, high-vaulted room with curtained-off beds lining its sides; whimpers, quiet moans, and the sound of strained breathing filling the air; harried healers moving quickly around the room. 

“This place,” Nico told Will, who’d come up just behind him, “has nothing on Elysium.”

He felt more than saw Will’s stare, before Will snorted. “Of course you’ve seen Elysium. Of _course_. Well, come on then, Di Angelo, we’ve got a bed prepared specially for you.”

“Oh, joy,” Nico said, but followed obediently along. 

*

He was surprised by how much he was sleeping.

When Nico mentioned this around lunch time on the second day to Liao, an oval-faced Chinese healer everyone called ‘Liao’ for short, she laughed at him. Nico wondered a little grumpily if this lack of fear in the face of death had always been endemic to the children of Apollo, or if it was just that they’d seen him being tucked under linen sheets with stern orders to _stay_ , like a dog, by their head counsellor.

“Your body knows what it needs, Di Angelo,” Liao said. “Better than you do right now, it seems.”

“Wouldn’t I be better off outdoors?” Nico asked as winsomely as he could. He hadn’t had to use ‘winsome’ at anyone in a long time. “You know, sunshine, fresh air, that kind of thing.”

Liao stared down at him, and then up over his bed, at the open window through which both sunshine and fresh air were streaming. “I think,” she said, “you need a distraction.” 

Which was how Jason found him (swooping in through the window like the idiot he was), a couple of hours later, sitting up and cutting linen strips into bandages before rolling them tightly into neat bundles. Liao had shown him the neat trick of making sure they stayed tightly rolled, before going off to to check on another patient. 

“Hey, man,” Jason grinned, landing on the chair next to the bed. “I brought you snacks!” 

“Snacks,” Nico repeated blankly. 

“Yeah!” Jason unslung a knapsack from his back and spilled out muffins, flapjacks, and a squashy blue cake wrapped in clingfilm onto the bed. Nico just about barely saved his bandages from the onslaught of food. “We figured you’d be wasting away from the lack of junk food in here.”

Nico unwrapped a muffin topped with almonds and bit into it, before humming in pleasure - it was flavoured with orange.

“Blue dye is definitely not on the recommended foods list,” Will said severely as he appeared in front of Nico’s bed. 

“Sorry,” Jason said guiltily. “Everyone just wanted to chip in and - you know Percy.”

Will laughed, and reached over to pluck the blue package from next to Nico’s calf. “Yeah, I do. I’ve known that dude since he was twelve and he doesn’t eat anything not-blue if he can.” Tossing the cake up and down, he mock-frowned and said, “I still have to confiscate this, though.” 

“I won’t tell Percy,” Jason said, and included Nico in that promise with a wink.

“I’m not making any promises,” Nico said, just to be contrary. 

Grinning, Will said, “That’s okay. I can take Jackson.”

The chair scraped as Jason got up. “Hey, uh, Will -- you wanna sit? No offence, but you look like shit.”

Will did look more worn around the edges than he had yesterday, which really reinforced Nico’s conviction that _he_ needed bed rest at least as much as Nico did. 

“Ah,” Will yawned, “I’m fine.” Then he sat on the foot of Nico’s bed, and Nico yelped.

“You’re in your scrubs!”

Will opened an eye. “I changed them after my last surgery, dude, chill. These are clean as the driven snow.” 

Jason was giving Nico a vaguely disapproving look. Nico glowered back; it was a legitimate concern. 

“What are you doing here, then?” 

That got Nico a headtilt, and another lazily opened eye. “Can’t I check in on my favourite patient without getting the inquisition?” 

“You’re not really checking, though,” Nico pointed out. 

Will gave him a once over. “You look all right. Liao said your stitches looked fine when she checked on them. Much better than when you came in, all right.” 

“You had _stitches_?” Jason asked, leaning forwards with a thump. He’d been balancing his chair on two legs.

“It was nothi -”

“On his arms, both of them,” Will said. “Gashes, I’d say claws. He refuses to tell. I had to redo the field stitches and clean the wounds out again - a few more hours and they’d have gone septic.”

“ _Nico_ ,” Jason said reproachfully.

“What!” protested Nico, feeling a little ganged-up upon. “I was kind of busy, okay? And you got them in time, anyway,” he turned to Will and kicked him in the butt. 

“Just about,” Will said, before a yawn split his face. “Okay, good talking, good to see you alive, but I’m out. Stay as long as you want, Grace. Oh, and I’ll get Kayla to have a look at those shrapnel wounds while you’re here. Just a check-up. Bye.” And with those flurry of instructions, Will was gone.

“You know,” Jason said reflectively. “All those months we were working on the Argo II here, I thought Will was just, like, this really laidback guy, you know?” 

Gods, did Nico know. He nodded.

“But I guess it’s good he can turn it on. We all owe a lot to him and the other healers ...” he trailed off - Nico knew he was thinking about Piper, who’d been badly off for a couple of days after a search party had found her and Jason. The impact of crash-landing had thrown her out of Jason’s arms, leaving her entirely unshielded from landing shrapnel and giving her a concussion too. 

“She’s not imminently dying,” Nico offered. It was true; he wasn’t hearing the buzz of souls leaving in Camp Half-Blood. Not anymore; not like the first few horrible days. He was aware of deaths happening everywhere, all the time, of course, but it was worse when it was happening to people you half-knew, or at least had fought alongside. 

Jason blinked at him, owl-eyed for a bit, before grinning. “Well, I knew that already, but thanks for reassuring me.”

Nico shrugged uncomfortably. He knew his powers discomfited people; Jason couldn’t be much different.

“Hey,” Jason said gently. “I do appreciate it, though. Always good to get back-up from the expert, right?”

“Expert in death?” Nico raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“Well, yeah.” Jason shrugged. “Like I’m an expert in the air, and Annabeth’s an expert in thinking, and Percy’s an expert in water, and Leo --” Jason came to an abrupt stop. 

Nico let him have his time.

*

A few hours later, just as the sky was getting all rosy and orange outside his window, he got more visitors - Percy and Annabeth, which made something in his gut twist. Nico wondered if he’d ever see the two of them together -- or Percy, really -- without feeling even an echo of that old, pulling ache inside. He hoped so.

“Hey, Nico,” Percy said. “How’s it going?”

“We brought you pizza,” Annabeth added, and pulled out a few pizza boxes from what appeared to be nowhere. “And dessert.” She produced a box of cannoli next.

Across the aisle, Cecil gave him a dirty look. “How come you get all the contraband food?”

“Because Nico’s not actually injured with a gut wound, Cecil,” Annabeth replied, before leaning over and jerking the privacy curtain shut. 

“It’s Italian night, apparently,” Percy explained. “But we thought it was stupid to have Italian night without our actual Italian around. So I decided to bring Italian night to you!”

Next to him, Annabeth mouthed, “Just roll with it.”

“...Thanks,” Nico said, and reached for a box.

Their conversation meandered aimlessly, even though Nico couldn’t shake the feeling that the two of them were here for _something_. Not that Percy and Annabeth wouldn’t hang out with an injured ... comrade, or whatever he was to them now, Nico supposed. But they weren’t the closest of the crew on the Argo II, and, well, things had always been awkward for the three of them. Or him and Percy. There was too much history, both spoken and unspoken. 

Annabeth told him about their plans to stay in New York for their senior year, and then do college in New Rome, and looked pleased when he said he’d be staying on in Camp Half-Blood. 

“That’s cool,” Percy said. “You gonna be a year-rounder, then?”

“I guess,” said Nico, tearing off another slice of pizza. “I mean, I’ll be visiting Hazel and my dad might need some help sometimes, but ... yeah. Mostly.”

True to form, Annabeth leaned forwards, steadying her box of pizza as she did so, and asked, “What about school, though?” The concern in her eyes made Nico want to laugh, the hysteria bubbling up in his chest. This conversation was way too weird. 

“Come on, Annabeth, the other kids who stay here all year round get taught by Chiron,” Percy pointed out. “ _You_ were.” 

“Yeah, but Nico’s never had a real chance at mortal school.”

Percy gave her a disbelieving look. “Why would he want one? Have you been to high school?”

“I get private tutoring when I’m ... down under,” Nico interrupted the impending argument. “Lots of dead teachers in Hades.” 

Annabeth turned to him with big eyes. “No. Way.”

Nico started smirking. “Yeah, I mean. I’ve met Aristotle - who had a lot to say about Alexander the Great, by the way - and, like, Charles Darwin. Who was a cool guy.”

“And they’ve _taught_ you?” Annabeth asked, her voice quivering.

“Not them. Father had teachers from the, uh, more modern era come and teach me. There was this guy called Feynman, he was good for science.” Nico frowned. “Think he might have tried to make a break for it when Thanatos was chained up, though.”

Annabeth’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. Percy watched her, fondly amused, while chewing on his pizza. 

“We ... can I ask you more about that? Another time? Times?” Annabeth asked. 

Nico thought about spending time actually talking to Annabeth. He’d spent so long trying to avoid both her and Percy. But they had brought him Italian dinner, and -- well. He could accept that they did things for many reasons. It was what humanity - and gods did. An inevitability, like death itself. That similarity was probably why Nico had come to terms with what he would have, a few years ago, seen as duplicity. He shrugged. “Sure.” 

“Awesome.” Annabeth’s eyes were shining, and then she sobered up and Nico sighed to himself. Here it came. He finished his pizza slice and closed the box, then reached over for a cannolo. At least he’d have something sweet first. Annabeth nudged Percy. 

Percy shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Nico took his first bite. “Okay, uh, first things first -- we didn’t bring you dinner just cos of what I’m about to say, okay?”

Chewing and swallowing, Nico offered up a wry smile. “I can accept that you can do things for many reasons.” 

“Uh,” Percy said. “Okay. Great. Because - I just wanted to, you know, let you know that I thank you for everything you’ve done for ... us, I guess, or the world, or the quest, whatever. Like ... we - _I’m_ grateful and very sorry you had to go through Tarta-”

Nico held up a hand. His stomach had started sinking at ‘ _thank you for everything_ ’. 

“-that place by yourself, and the twins and that bronze jar, and just - everything. And I’m sorry that I never let myself trust you until ... so late, because -” he looked sidelong at Annabeth, who just raised her eyebrows at him. Nico didn’t even try to parse that. “I guess ... I mean, I realised that ... I mean, I got that whole thing with Hades in a way, I guess. Though that was so long ago. And you did help me, and you’ve been helping me all the way. So. I’m sorry. And I’m grateful.”

Nico stared at him, barely-eaten cannolo forgotten in his hand. He opened and closed his mouth, speechless in the face of Percy’s earnest stare. 

“Must be heavy stuff you’re talking about,” Will said, suddenly swinging in through the curtains like a fucking boon from the gods. “Why’re you making my patient look all gloomy?” 

“Will!” Annabeth said, startled, and made to get up from her chair. Percy looked consternated.

“Nah, you’re good,” Will said, breezing over to Nico. “Hey, Di Angelo, budge up.” 

Nico made a face at him, but moved over anyway, shuffling his bed tray, contraband food and all, along. Will didn’t so much sit as fold down onto the bed, tall enough that he could rest the back of his head on the edge of the windowsill when he leaned back. 

“You look tired, man,” Percy said, before holding the box of cannoli out. 

Presumably Will opened his eyes, because he reached out with an “Oh, hey, thanks,” and took one, wrapping it carefully in a napkin. “And I’m fine. Caught a full sleep cycle earlier, so I’m good. Just monitoring the ward tonight.” 

“No more surgeries?” Nico couldn’t help asking and was glad his voice didn’t come out sounding weird.

“Nope,” Will said, popping the ‘p’. “Ayesha’s in charge of surgeries for tonight.”

“Chance for a break, then,” Annabeth offered. Her eyes had been darting between Nico and Will suspiciously, but now they were just on Will. Like she’d come to a conclusion. Nico swallowed hard; the bite of pastry-and-cream he’d just taken had abruptly turned to dust. 

Will smiled at her. “That’s the hope.”

Annabeth smiled back, but then she glanced at Nico and he saw the tiniest lift of her eyebrows and the slightest acknowledging incline of her head. Nico had no idea what that was about - or, well, he did, and she was wrong - but his dessert went back to tasting like dessert. Right. Okay. 

The tension of only a few minutes before had been thoroughly defused by Will’s appearance; that thick, awful awkwardness as Nico had got what he’d only very subconsciously known what he wanted to hear was gone. He still felt a little like his head was going to float off his body. Percy looked kind of wrong-footed as well - which was a comfort, if not very surprising. Only Annabeth looked comfortable as she chatted with Will about the logistics of running an infirmary. Nico ate his cannolo silently, turning Percy’s words over and over in his mind.

He hadn’t come anywhere close to a conclusion when his temporary reprieve ended.

Someone, from a bed near the entrance by the sounds of it, let out a sharp cry that dissolved into pained whimpers. Will sighed and put his half-eaten cannolo down on Nico’s dinner tray, wiping his hands carefully on a napkin. 

“No rest for the wicked,” he said wryly. “Nice chatting, Annabeth - I’ll come by again later to check on your arm, Nico, but feel free to fall asleep.”

Nico watched him disappear back out into the infirmary at large with a sense of dread and turned back to find Percy looking at him expectantly. 

Words failed to come; Nico didn’t think they ever would. “I don’t know what to say to you,” Nico said honestly. 

Percy’s face fell, and a curl of irritation licked its way up Nico’s spine. He furrowed his brows. “Were you expecting me to say thank you or something?”

A spasm crossed Percy’s face - he was quick-tempered as ever, Nico thought wryly to himself. Thank the Fates the fate of the world hadn’t hung on just him - but then Percy visibly mastered himself. “No, man. Like, I mean ... no, I didn’t even know if you’d want to hear it.”

Nico tilted his head, considered it. “Neither do I, really.” Time was when he’d have snapped back with ‘then why did you say it’, but Nico was trying too. 

Percy exhaled. “Okay. Okay. I guess, I mean. It’s a lot.”

“Yes,” Nico agreed, and surprised himself with a yawn. “Hey, it was ... nice of you guys to visit, but ...”

“Of course,” said Annabeth, immediately understanding. She stood, gathering the food boxes. Percy stood too, and took Nico’s pizza box when Nico lifted it. “It’s good to see you resting, Nico.”

Nico resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yeah, thanks. We - I’ll see you around, I guess.” 

“I’ll leave this here,” Percy said, putting the box of cannoli on the windowsill. “In case you get hungry during the night.” 

An olive branch. _No more grudges_ , Nico reminded himself silently. “Thanks,” he offered. 

He waited till he heard the infirmary door close behind Percy and Annabeth, before going to get ready for bed. 

*

Nightmares came to him somewhere in the night. 

Maybe it’d been the mention of Tartarus, or maybe it was just that his mind wasn’t so blanketed over with sheer weariness anymore. Nico dreamt of all the choices he’d made, all the wrong choices he could’ve made, and of what might have happened. He watched, horror-struck and stuck in his dream-body, as the world crumbled into ruin at his feet, as Bianca reborn was the last to go, dark round eyes set in a toddler’s round face looking at him reproachfully, soundlessly. He listened, paralysed, as hollow, cold laughter echoed cruelly around him -- and despaired when he realised it was issuing from his own mouth. Helpless, alone, and quite possibly mad - Nico clawed at the walls of his own mind, desperate to get out. 

“--wake up, Nico!” 

Nico abruptly plunged up through sticky, clinging darkness like a diver, breaking the surf with a gasp, his eyes flying wide open. Will Solace was leaning over him, hands on his shoulders; moonlight streaming in through the open window silvered his air and his eyes were very blue. Nico stared at him, took in the solidity of his fingers pressed into Nico’s collarbone, and tried to calm his breathing. 

“Hey, you’re fine now, just concentrate on your breaths, yeah. Apollo Acestor, you’re freezing,” Will swore, and leaned away out of the light. Nico made a sound of protest when Will came back into view with a knitted blanket in his hands; he still felt like something heavy was draped over him, keeping him immobile. Blankets would not help. “You’re cold, Di Angelo, here, sit up.” 

Nico tried, he honestly did, and alarm started creeping into Will’s eyes when Nico didn’t move. 

Hands slipped under Nico’s back and neck and shifted him up, before they moved away, Will conducting a diagnostic. “Could you feel my hands, Nico?” 

It felt like he was wresting control of the ghosts away from Minos all over again, but Nico finally managed to force the breath out of his chest and shape it with his mouth. “Y-yes.” It seemed like that vise-like pressure on his body released at the same time as the word, and he gasped hard, slumping forwards. 

Will caught him and eased him back, then put two fingers to the underside of Nico’s jaw and frowned. “You’re still cold, and your pulse is way too slow. I’m going to get you something hot to drink, and then you’re going to tell me how often this has been happening.”

He’d wrapped the blanket around Nico’s shoulders and the curtains were swinging shut in his wake before Nico could protest. The blanket was warm around his shoulders, and Nico abruptly shivered. He drew his knees up to his chest and continued shaking, both from the horror of his dreams and the cold that had suddenly stolen over him. Or that he could suddenly feel. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Oh, good, you’re shivering,” Will said, as he parted the curtains, steaming mug in hand. 

Incredulously, Nico asked, “G-good?” 

“Well, overall - bad. But at least your body’s trying to keep you warm now!” 

“Oh-k-kay,” Nico chattered, and buried his face into the soft wool stretched between his knees. He heard the clink of the mug being set down on the window sill, and sensed Will stretching overhead to -- ah, close the window. The bed dipped next to him and then incredibly warm hands started chafing at his back through the layers of cloth.

It was that - the human warmth, and the presence of someone alive and well and so determinedly _cheerful_ that made the creeping fingers of cold that’d wrapped around his heart and his body start to retreat. 

“There, now,” Will said, sounding satisfied, as the shivers lessened. “I think you can have the drink now.”

Nico uncurled, feeling weak - a distant memory came to him, of being very small and having had a very bad fever. The weakness in his limbs brought back echoes of that experience. Will was holding out a chipped, yellow mug that said WORLD’S BEST DAD on it. The O was a sun. Nico stared.

“Dad’s got an ego,” Will said. “But he’s probably one of the better parents, as the gods come.” Then he flinched, looking out the window. “I mean, no offence to anyone else.”

Nico reached out and took the mug with both hands, wrapping his fingers around the warm ceramic and savouring the heat. He closed his eyes to breathe in the steam and the scent of - “ _cioccolata calda_ ,” Nico murmured reverently, then he sipped carefully at it. 

Looking back up at Will, he said, “It even tastes right. But this isn’t ambrosia.” 

Will smiled and tapped the side of his nose. “Old Will Solace has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.”

“It’s good,” Nico said. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” said Will. “How often have you been having nightmares?”

Nico sighed. “That was the first one I’ve had since getting to camp.”

“Because you hadn’t been sleeping?” 

“... Maybe,” Nico said grudgingly. “But before that ... not when I was transporting the Athena Parthenon - well, except.”

“Except?” Will waited, eyebrow raised. Nico got the feeling he’d wait for as long as it took. 

“The last time, I’m sure Coach Hedge told you. When I almost faded.” 

All Will did was say, “Hmmm. And before that?” 

Nico sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “After Rome, on the Argo II ... pretty much every time I went to sleep.”

“Which probably wasn’t very often, I am guessing.”

Nico looked at Will in the eye, made sure as much of the pain and horror he’d beheld in Tartarus and again in his dreams were in his eyes. “You wouldn’t want to sleep if you have the nightmares I do.”

Will flinched. “Point taken. That explains … a lot, actually.” His nose scrunched up a bit, and he hesitated. “But ... last night, you slept okay?”

“Yes,” said Nico. “Maybe I was too tired.” He closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. “I can’t go on like this,” he murmured.

“No, you can’t,” Will agreed. “Well, I can put you into a dreamless sleep for the rest of tonight, but ... we’ll have to figure something out.”

“Mm,” said Nico, already feeling the tug of sleep. “Okay.” He let Will pull the mug out of his hands, and felt Will lay a warm hand over his brow. The last thing Nico heard before he slid into sleep was the sound of Will softly singing a hymn. 

*

Annabeth was sitting by his bedside when Nico woke up. 

“We’ve been having nightmares too,” she said bluntly. 

“Cripes, Chase,” said Will. “Let the man have his breakfast first.” 

“You look rested,” Nico told him accusingly. 

Will smiled sunnily at him, none of the greyness apparent. “That’s because I have. It’s eleven thirty, sunshine, and I went off shift after -- at four.” 

Nico scowled. He felt like a fuzzy caterpillar had taken up residence in his mouth and died. “Don’t call me sunshine.” 

A small cup of blue liquid appeared before him, as did a basin. “Swirl and spit,” Will said. “Then you can have breakfast.”

The mouthwash tasted like mint on fire, and Nico was still coughing when his breakfast tray was set before him. 

“More like brunch now,” Will shrugged. “Anyway, I’ll leave you guys to it.”

“Wha-” Nico started, but the curtains swung shut. 

“He’s giving us privacy,” Annabeth said. “In case you don’t want him to hear about ... the pit.” 

“Oh.” Nico started picking apart his bread - brioche today. The nymphs were really going all-out. “Do you?” 

“Not particularly,” said Annabeth. “Some things ... don’t need to be known.” 

Nico looked up at her and understood, suddenly, why Percy was so in love with her. The generosity of this visit, the kindness in leaving Will out - “Thanks, Annabeth,” he told her. 

She smiled at him. “Eat up, Nico, I can wait.” 

And she did, reading silently while Nico finished eating his bread and had his cup of milky coffee. 

“So,” Nico started. “How do you ... I mean, you look like you sleep.”

Annabeth laughed, and there was a bitter undercurrent to it that Nico related all too well with. “I do, yeah. Because I have to. Even demigods have to. But Nico - when I ... when I have a nightmare, I go talk about it with Percy. Or my siblings sit with me. It helps to have someone hold you. An anchor, if you will.” 

“Oh,” Nico managed. 

Despair crept in - who did Nico have? Hazel was across the country, and ... it was depressing to realise that his list ended there.

“You can come talk to me, Nico,” Annabeth said. “Gods know I’d understand.” 

Nico coloured and lowered his eyes. The twilling of the blanket was suddenly fascinating. “Thanks. I ... appreciate the offer.”

Annabeth sighed. “Look, I know we’ve never been close, but ... you and Percy and I, we’re the only three who really know what it was like.”

The words whipped out of Nico before he could take them back. “No, you _don’t_.”

The venom and vehemence of his words visibly took Annabeth aback, and he immediately felt bad - then angry about feeling bad. Then Annabeth said, “All right, no, we couldn’t. It was ... horrible... torturous enough without seeing the pit the way you did. But, Nico, it’s closer than anyone else.”

Slightly mollified, Nico said, “I guess.” He didn’t really want to continue this conversation; it was pulling out all the desperate, horrific memories he wanted locked away in the back of his mind forever. Seeing Tartarus in all its stark, stomach-turning reality, the way the place literally made you want to _not be_ , that one moment of truth when his own misery had defeated Akhyllis herself ... he wouldn’t - couldn’t dwell on these things and not go mad. Or madder than he already was. 

Silence stretched between them, before Annabeth let out another sigh. She got to her feet, slapping her hands against her thighs. “Until you find someone that you can trust to take your nightmares, Nico, just know that I’m willing to listen. And Percy too.”

Nico looked up at her. “Unless you’ve got one yourself.” 

She acknowledged that with a wry grin, and then went. 

He almost wished Annabeth hadn’t left, because now he was alone with his own thoughts, already pulled down those dark paths. Nico groaned and pinched at the bridge of his nose, then pressed the base of his palms into his eyelids, trying to will them away to earthlier things. The sun, the grass, the scent of strawberries floating in on the breeze. Hot chocolate and barbecues at night. The reassuring grip of his sword in his hand. The solid comfort of Hazel’s arms around him, and the security being around her gave him. 

The list of earthly comforts ran out about there. Nico wondered if he’d ever get a night’s worth of peaceful sleep without the aid of an Apollonian hymn again. He remembered, abruptly, having decided, once he got past Akhyllis, to try and look past his losses and fear and pain. Then the rest of ghosting through Tartarus and being captured, tortured, and put in a jar of death had blotted that resolution out. 

Where was Liao and her list of errands for idle patients when he needed her? 

Just then, Will bustled through the curtains with an armful of bandages, and Nico’s heart leapt painfully with hope.

“Are those for me to roll?” he asked, too eagerly.

Will looked at him, eyebrow raised. Nico was getting used to that. “No, these are for your arm. I’m checking on those gashes.”

“Oh,” Nico said. Will didn’t miss the note of disappointment, judging from the furrow of his eyebrows. 

He sat quietly -- too quietly, Nico realised after -- as Will unwound the bandages on his arm and washed off the poultice he’d applied previously. It was when Will pressed at the skin around the gashes gently and tutted to himself, then produced a scalpel -- and Nico still remained quiescent, that Will finally started talking again. 

“Annabeth spoke to me,” he said quietly as he made an incision into skin that was stretched red and shiny. Will was using what Nico had come to think of as his Soothing Healer voice, only ever used on other patients and Nico in the middle of the night. “No details, but what needs to be done for you.” 

“I’m not sleeping here every night,” Nico said reflexively.

Will glanced up from where he was draining the infection. Whatever local anaesthetic he’d put on was working like magic. There was a wry tug to his mouth when he said, “Of course you wouldn’t. Being in your own cabin may help, who knows?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Nico shot back. The draining was starting to twinge a bit. 

“No,” Will said calmly. “This is an issue of the mind. I’m trained in healing the body. But we’re looking at other ways to help you. Or help you get the help you need.”

Nico watched as Will washed out the wound with a clear liquid. “I was thinking of only sleeping in the day time. When the sun’s out. I haven’t had any nightmares when I’m napping. Yet.”

“Short term solutions aren’t satisfactory, Nico,” Will said without looking up, now spreading a sweet-smelling paste thin over the incision and the wound. “But we can try, this afternoon.” He pressed thin gauze over the wound and taped it down. “There. Someone will be by this evening to wash that out again -”

“Not you?” Nico couldn’t help asking. 

“I,” Will announced gravely, but his mouth was twitching. “Am being forced out of my own infirmary. For my own good, they say.”

“Gods, the horror,” Nico said dryly. “Being told what to do by healers.”

“Watch it, Di Angelo, I’m still in charge of you.” Will pointed at him, then softened. “My siblings do know what they’re doing. They’ll put you in another dreamless sleep tonight, but after that ... I suppose we’ll have to see. Mortals go for therapy all the time. You could try talking.” 

Nico gave him a look. “To who? You? You don’t want to know what I’ve been through.”

“Don’t I?” Will shrugged when Nico glared. “Not the specifics, probably, but if you need to get something off your mind ...” 

Nico sighed and gazed up at the ceiling. Demigods -- all too self-sacrificing to live. “I’ll keep you in mind, I guess.” 

“And Annabeth and Percy?” Will pressed. He swatted at Nico very carefully when Nico rolled his eyes. 

“Maybe,” Nico said. Then he yawned and closed his eyes.. These conversations were very draining. “Maybe Jason too, when he’s - ah - in camp.” Another yawn overtook him, quick on the heels of the other. “ ...I’m going to nap now, kay?”

“Sure,” said Will quietly. Nico felt him lay a warm hand on his brow. “Good luck.” 

Sad but fitting, Nico thought vaguely, as he slid into sleep. 

*

He felt vaguely triumphant as he swam out of cobwebby, ambiguous, gloriously mundane dreams. It appeared that the sleeping in the sun thing did work; it was probably why he didn’t have the nightmares whilst transporting the Athena Parthenon. They’d slept during the day and travelled by night. Then his stomach grumbled very loudly.

“You slept through lunch,” someone female informed him. Nico opened his eyes. It turned out to be Piper. 

“Is there a rotation?” he asked grumpily.

“Don’t be a bitch,” Piper told him, and shoved a sandwich under his nose. “We care, dumbass.” 

Nico relaxed and took the sandwich, unwrapping it. “So everyone seems to be keen on reminding me.”

“Yeah, because you need it,” Piper said. She seemed to be compensating for her neuroses over the charmspeak by being blunt when she wasn’t using it. Or maybe that was just Nico. Whatever it was, he appreciated it. 

Especially since he could be assured of a straight answer when he asked, “Why, though?” He knew he hadn’t given anyone much of a reason to like him. Nico knew he was wreathed in his father’s legacy, and that his mere presence was enough to cause unease. 

“Jeeze,” said Piper. “There are so many answers, Di Angelo. Because, I guess, we all owe you one. More than one. From what I’ve managed to get, way more than I actually know. But we’re not doing this as, like, to even things out. Okay? I get it - look, I’ll admit that we could have done things way differently on the Argo II when you joined us. I mean, I knew squat about you or anyone else but Annabeth, but in hindsight -- the fact that Hazel and Percy wanted to save you so much should have said a lot.”

Nico stared down at the blanket. He wanted to curl up into a ball again, hide away. He could’ve accepted that they were doing this out of obligation -- but it was so hard to accept what Piper was saying; what she was offering him. 

“And you’re dependable, loyal, stubborn,” she gestured at the bandages and gauze on Nico’s biceps and added, “Reyna told me and Annabeth about those.” Nico winced. “Yeah, you don’t seem to place a lot of value on yourself, which ... I’ve been there, dude. It fucking sucks, and I guess basically what I’m saying is, I could get to like you. You’re a good person. You don’t deserve to be there. So that’s my reason.” She paused. “Aww, you’re blushing. That’s the most colour I’ve seen on you!”

Nico buried his face in the blanket stretched across his bent knees. 

He flinched back up again when he felt Piper’s hand in his hair, snarl already fixed on his face. 

“Whoa!” Piper said, rearing back, hands palms-up before her. “I’m sorry! What!” 

“I don’t like being touched,” Nico said, calming himself with some effort. 

Piper gave him a long, searching look. “Okay,” she said. 

“Do we have to talk about it?” Nico asked plaintively. He really didn’t like how people were taking advantage of his being bed-bound to come and talk feelings with him. 

“Nah,” said Piper. “How about this: what is this Mythomagic thing you and Frank talked about?”

Nico stared at her. “You really want to know?”

“Uh, yeah,” Piper said. “It’s a game. Of course I want to know about it.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay. But I need the cards to show you.”

Piper stood up. “Where are they? I’ll go get them.”

She got back much faster than Nico had expected; he’d stuffed the cards deep into the chest at the foot of his bed, never having wanted them to resurface again. He was grateful when Piper didn’t say anything about the contents of the chest, and doubly so when the afternoon passed quickly by as he taught Piper how to play Mythomagic. 

*

Nico stayed for a third night before being released. 

“You’re still under orders to give your powers a rest,” Ayesha said sternly. She was a tall girl with the powerful legs of a dancer - Nico’d seen her put them to use while stopping an Ares camper from bucking away Will’s hands during an emergency surgery. They were standing in the portico of the infirmary’s side-entrance. “And to hit the panic button if you have a nightmare.”

The panic button was something Apollo Cabin had got the Hephaestus and Hecate cabins to (quite literally) hammer out in a day. A little bit of magic and mechanics added up to a small button that, when hit, would alert a healer in the infirmary to someone in need. Nico was fully planning on losing it in some shadowy corner of his cabin. 

“Okay,” said Nico. 

Ayesha narrowed her eyes at him. “And make sure you don’t anything that’ll pull on your sutures too much.” She’d sutured up the wound Will had drained the day before, just before letting Nico go.

“Okay,” said Nico again, itching to leave. “Thanks.” 

She softened a little, and slapped him gently on the arm. “Take care of yourself, kid.” 

“Okay,” Nico said a third time, and turned to walk away down the hill to the mountain stream that fed the lake. The sun was out, beating down on his shoulders and warming his hair. Crossing the low footbridge over the stream, Nico took the panic button out of his pocket and tossed it up and down. He flipped it absently, over and over, as he strolled over the meadows between the stream and the line of new cabins. Turning northeast to follow the line of them to the lake and loop back round into the common between the cabins, Nico idly toyed with the idea of sort of accidentally flicking it into the lake. 

It would be a pity to waste the campers’ efforts, but it would be useless if he woke up unable to move again, in any case. He had no issues with becoming nocturnal to preserve his sanity, or what remained of it. Sleeping in the sunshine was pretty pleasant, too. 

“Nico!” Annabeth exclaimed just as he rounded Iris Cabin, leaving the lake at his back. She seemed to have popped up out of nowhere. “You should take better care with that, you know.” Annabeth caught the panic button mid toss and frowned at him.

“Mmmm,” Nico shrugged and took it back, slipping it into his pocket. “I’m going to redecorate,” he said abruptly, cutting off whatever Annabeth had been about to say.

She swivelled to look at the Hades cabin, on the other end of the common. 

“The outside too?”

“Mmm ... no,” Nico decided. “I like it this way.”

“It looks like your dad’s palace.” 

Nico laughed, surprising both himself and her. “Maybe. If I added a little more, what are they called? Those wiggly bits.” He drew his hand across, down, and back up again in the air, trying to shape the architectural features he had in mind. 

“Crenellations? Gargoyles? Armed skeletons?” 

“All of those, yeah,” Nico agreed, mouth twitching. “But maybe the crenellations first.” 

Annabeth arched an eyebrow. “It’s hard to tell when you’re joking.” 

“Something my dad and I have in common,” Nico agreed, and started walking again. He only noticed Annabeth had fallen behind after a few paces. She was giving him a considering look when he stopped and turned back.

“You know,” said Annabeth, jogging up to him. “I think you’ve actually got the best relationship with your godly parent out of all of us. Percy gets along really well with his dad and Athena’s great, of course, but ...”

Nico shrugged uncomfortably. “We have things in common. Death, stygian swords, being an outcast ...” 

“Hey,” Annabeth reached out, before stopping short of touching him. He appreciated that. “You’re not one any more, you know? You never have been.”

Nico gave her a wry look. “I’ve decided to stay already, Annabeth, you don’t have to do this.” 

Annabeth blew her hair out of her face frustratedly. “No, really, I mean ... I think now that maybe camp wasn’t the best place for you to get trained --”

“Really,” Nico said sarcastically.

“-- but you’ve always got a place here,” Annabeth finished, ignoring him. 

He lifted an eyebrow. “I tried once, two years ago. Remember?” And then the looks and awkward shuffling and whispers had started up after a few weeks, and Nico had gone back to the one place he felt vaguely wanted. At least there was no stupid curfew in the Underworld. 

“About half of that was curiosity, Nico,” Annabeth told him. “And the Underworld, well ...”

Nico smiled grimly. “I understand.” He did, all too well. The way most of the Seven on the Argo II had acted around him had been a microcosm of demigod society’s kneejerk reactions to those of the Underworld, living or undead. It would have hurt more, if he hadn’t already been running on empty and grimly holding to what he’d believed was a death promise. 

Annabeth sighed and gestured around the common. 

The Stolls were perched atop their cabin, taking turns to look through a telescope pointed at the hills. Martin from Athena Cabin was reading outside the cabin, his broken leg propped up on a cushion and Kayla from Apollo sprawled out on her belly next to him. They waved. Piper was being taught to ride a pegasus by her cabinmates, who were standing around and alternately calling instructions up to her and laughing hysterically. Jason was literally hovering over Piper, ready to dive and catch her if she fell off the chariot. He waved down at them, taking his eyes off Piper for a second, and some Aphrodite campers turned around. Lacey smiled and waved at the both of them. 

“They’re all trying. We’re all trying,” Annabeth side. “We meant what we said in the infirmary the other night, Nico. I’ll beat anyone up who doesn’t.” Her grey eyes glinted as she said so. 

“I can take care of myself,” Nico said, his ears burning. 

“Obviously.” Annabeth rolled her eyes. “But the point is you don’t have to.” 

“Right,” Nico said, and cleared his throat. He had just about had his fill of emotional heart-to-hearts for the next decade. “So. The drapes in my cabin have to go. Do you know a place in the city?” 

“Do you have the money?” she countered. 

“My father is Hades. God of death, wealth ...” 

Annabeth sighed. “Of course. But - look - the nymphs could weave you something if you asked nicely.”

“I want new beds too,” Nico said. “Sheets. The works. I’d summon some skeleton carpenters, but,” he wriggled his fingers. “I’m not allowed apparently.” 

He got a really alarming grin. “And that, Nico is why you should stay at camp.” Annabeth continued before Nico could remind her he’d already said he was going to stay. “Because we have carpentry classes as well,”

*

In the late afternoon, Nico took a break from being talked at by Jack Mason about joints and pegs and wood grain to get in a nap before the sun set. 

He tore down the heavy velvet curtains from his window and pulled the heavy velvet sheets and blankets off the coffin-beds (Nico was going to have to track down the interior designer he’d raised next time he was in the Underworld and give her a tongue-lashing), ignoring the protesting of his injured biceps. He dragged them into a pile, making a nest in the pool of sunlight that finally could slant in through the window. 

Nico had slept for at least two thirds of his time in the infirmary, but the exertions of the afternoon had left him yawning again. The sun wouldn’t set till it was about nine, which meant that Nico had about four hours to sleep, by his reckoning. He curled up atop his nest and closed his eyes, falling asleep almost immediately.

The light filling the room was tinted pink and orange when Nico opened his eyes again; the shadows on the floor had lengthened and looked deeper too. He blinked groggily and sat up, looking around to get his bearings. He blinked harder at the sight of an indistinct shape on the bedside table nearest the door. Stifling a yawn, Nico got up and padded towards the table. In the thickening gloom of the cabin, he accidentally walked into a carved mahogany corner and bit down on a curse. The Greek fire torches sprung into life when he waved an impatient hand, and Nico hobbled his way to the table. The indistinct shape coalesced into plates heaped with food, covered in a woven basket upturned over them. There was a note stuck to the basket, in a nigh illegible scrawl.

‘ _Eat all of this - Doctor’s orders_.’

Nico snorted and uncovered his dinner, contemplating putting a lock on his door. He had a feeling it wouldn’t matter much, with the Hermes kids around. The knocker clanged once and the door swung open, revealing Jason.

“Hey, Nico! Good nap?” Jason asked way too cheerily. 

“... yes,” said Nico. 

“Great! So, I was thinking ...”

“Oh dear,” said Nico.

Jason looked at him narrowly, before cracking up. “Yeah, whatever. At least I’m not Percy. So I was thinking, you could eat your dinner at campfire? It’s about to start.”

“Ah,” Nico stalled. He had been thinking about eating in the arena with Mrs O’Leary. And feeding one plate to her. Maybe two. Jason waited patiently, looking cheerful and totally untrustworthy. Nico couldn’t figure out a way to turn Jason down without being rude, and he had decided to try. “Okay,” he said, giving up. “Sure, I’ll do that. Fine.” 

“Great!” Jason honest-to-gods chirped, and swooped in. “Hey, I’ll help you carry the rest of that.” 

He returned Nico’s glower with a smile of blinding innocence and goodwill, and kept up meaningless chatter about all his plans for the rest of summer all the way to the amphitheatre. Nico hesitated at the edge of the firelight, but Jason swept cheerfully on.

“Bro!” Percy yelled, waving maniacally. “Over here! You too, Nico!” There were a couple of seats free next to him - presumably because people wanted to avoid being hit by his flailing arms. Nico sighed; so much for hiding in the back. He trudged after Jason and sank down into a seat, between Jason and a guy with curly, dark hair. 

“Hey,” said the kid. Nico felt his shoulders rise in response to the kid’s diffident tone. 

“Hey,” he replied, and then groaned when he realised he forgot the cutlery. Luckily, the kid didn’t seem to take it the wrong way.

“I hate it when I forget my cutlery too,” he said, before turning around to tap someone on the knee.

“Callum, you got your multitool?”

Callum leant down; Nico recognised him -- a burly son of Hephaestus in the same mould as Beckendorf. He’d get there in a few years, and hopefully live longer than his older brother. “Yeah, Why?” 

Nico’s new friend jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Nico. “Di Angelo here has got no cutlery.” 

“Oh,” said Callum. Nico braced himself, but then -- “I hate it when that happens to me. Here you go, man.”

“Th- thanks,” said Nico, taking the multitool, knife already extended. “Callum and --?”

“Oh,” said the kid. “David. Hecate cabin.” He said his name the Spanish way, Dah-veed. 

“You’re Spanish?” asked Nico curiously. He’d known that satyrs had been collecting outside the States, but hadn’t met any other Europeans. 

“Ah, yeah,” David said. “Vamos Espana and all that. My dad was glad to let me come here, though.”

“Oh,” said Nico. 

“Not like that” David said hurriedly. “Just that he said it would be a good opportunity. Improve my English, be in the USA. Spain’s economy being what it is.”

Nico did know. It came with wealth being his father’s domain too. That and the bankers populating the Fields of Eternal Punishment. 

“Right,” said Nico. “That’s pragmatic.”

David shrugged. “That’s my dad.” 

After grasping desperately about for something else to say, Nico said, “So ... I’d better go ...” he gestured towards the bonfire.

“Ah, yeah,” David waved a hand. “Go on.” He turned to the girl sitting next to him. 

Jason and Percy gave him completely indiscreet thumbs ups when Nico stood up. He rolled his eyes. 

“My lady,” Nico inclined his head respectfully as he approached the fire. 

Hestia, in her favoured guise as a little girl, smiled at him. The flames in her eyes danced. “Nico. The shadows do not sit as heavily on you tonight.”

Nico mulled over that as he scraped most of the food on his plate into the fire, automatically mumbling a prayer to his father. “I hope it stays that way,” he replied. 

Hestia laughed, and fire climbed a little higher. “Eat up, Nico,” she said, gesturing at his mostly empty plate. 

When he got back to his seat, Jason gave him a disapproving look. 

“I have _two more plates_ , Grace,” said Nico, spearing a carrot slice with his knife. 

“One of which is just fruit,” Jason shot back. “Also, Will Solace totally saw you sacrificing your entire plate.”

Startled, Nico looked up. And true enough, Will was glaring across the bonfire at him. He was sitting with a group of his siblings -- all of them golden-haired (which meant that Liao and Ayesha were stuck in the infirmary that night) and looking very much like a family. It made Nico ache a little inside. He’d have to visit Hazel as soon as he could. In the mean time, Will was pointing to his own eyes with two fingers, and then at Nico with them. Nico didn’t need familiarity with modern day slang to parse that.

“Oh, you’re in trouble,” observed David. “Solace cursed me to finish all my vegetables like the second day I got here. Didn’t even know Apollo kids could do that.” 

“I think it’s a healer-specific thing,” the girl next to David said. She turned out to be Katie Gardner, counsellor of Demeter cabin. “It’s mostly just poetry-related curses. Will’s very keen on keeping us healthy and alive, Nico, don’t take it personally. Also, you were about to get scurvy, David.” 

“I was not,” David said indignantly, and off they went.

Nico ate his carrot and waved the now-bare knife pointedly at Will. Will rolled his eyes and pointed at the two other plate in Jason’s lap, and then pantomimed eating. Why Jason couldn’t accidentally drop one, Nico didn’t know. 

Suppressing a sigh, Nico took his second plate and started in on the mash just as one of Will’s siblings lifted her voice up in song. 

*

Nico decided he was going to convert the windows into bay windows with daybeds, all the better to sleep in. 

The first day, he tried to use his geokinesis and dropped to his knees right before Jason had bowled him over - and then gone off to gather a crew of volunteers. 

“We’ll do it the manual way,” Jason said, after making sure Nico hadn’t been overly squashed. 

“It’s obsidian,” Nico said, pride still smarting. “You’ll need diamond to cut that.” 

“We have diamond saws,” Jake said helpfully. 

Nico threw his hands out in frustration. “Fine, on your heads be it, then!” And then he went to discuss blueprints with Annabeth. 

They were in the midst of discussing what actually had to be done to the walls to accommodate a set of bay windows on either wall when a shadow fell over the scroll that lay between them. It was Will Solace, looming over them. He said, “I heard you tried to do something stupid.” 

“I wasn’t using my powers of the dead,” Nico said. “And now the campers are doing something more dangerous.”

He pointed. 

Will looked over. 

Jason and his motley crew of wannabe builders were at work sawing out the old windows. 

“Gods, they’re not even wearing goggles!” Will exclaimed. “OI! YOU IDIOTS!” he raised his voice and sprinted towards them. 

Annabeth had a secret smile on her face when Nico turned back. He gave her a look, but she just shook her head and asked, “So why bay windows anyway?” 

Nico shrugged, feeling his cheeks heat up. “I like sleeping in the light. It helps me, you know. With the nightmares.” 

“The moonlight as well?” Annabeth asked curiously. 

Flushing harder, Nico looked aside. “Well ... I haven’t really tested that one out yet.” 

“Nico.” 

It was amazing how much reproof Annabeth could fit into two syllables. Nico wondered if this is what Bianca would have been like with him, if she’d been allowed to live longer and mature. It felt almost nice, Annabeth big-sister-ing him. And then he flinched; it was a traitorous thought, almost. 

“I get enough sleep during the day, I swear,” Nico said. “There’s more daylight hours than night now, anyway.” 

Annabeth jabbed her pencil at the parchment in between them. “Fine. In any case, I was thinking oriel windows, and corbels to take the weight. We’ll have to look at how to build the windows themselves first, though, and then fitting into a window frame.”

Nico gazed down at Annabeth’s preliminary sketches, and the many question marks scrawled on them. He sighed and tapped his fingers against the earth, feeling for the nearest builder skeletons. It would be so much easier if he could just summon the dead to do the work for him. For them. Bay windows kind of post-dated classical architecture, which was Annabeth’s area of expertise.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Annabeth. There was laughter in her voice. 

Nico scowled. “How do you know -- ah, fine. Doing that only drained me because the geology here isn’t right for obsidian.”

That got him a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“Well -- Hazel’s far better at geokinesis, but essentially we manipulate the earth. What’s in it, changing the shape of it. We’re sitting on rocks left over from glaciers now.” Nico knocked his knuckles gently against the earth they’re sitting on. “It’s all sedimentary. Under that is the bedrock. No obsidian.”

“So by trying to call up more obsidian --”

“I was overextending.” Nico smiled ruefully. “I didn’t think to check the geology we’re sitting on first, because the first time round my workers just ... went and got it. Of course, Hazel could’ve told straightaway, but unlike her I actually have to try.” 

“Well,” said Annabeth. “Well.” She looked distracted, drumming her fingers against the scroll and gazing at Nico’s cabin with a furrow between her brows. The builders had finally managed to finish cutting away the window, and were lifting it out of the frame with much hollering. “We’d better stop them before they go any further, because I’ve got an idea.”

Nico looked over at Jason, Jake and friends, who were carefully laying the window down on the grass a few feet away from the cabin. “What is it?”

“Look, there’s obsidian right there, right?” Annabeth asked, and went on without waiting for a reply. “So you could just manipulate the obsidian that already makes up your cabin.”

It sounded like it could work. Nico wasn’t sure that’s how obsidian actually worked, but the walls were made up of slabs of obsidian. He could easily shorten the cabin a little, and use the slabs left over to create the windows themselves, and the corbels. “That sounds workable. I’d have to go slowly, though.” 

Annabeth nodded. “And our potential builders can help with making the windows panes and lifting them in. Obsidian’s going to be heavy.”

“Or I could just summon some skeletons,” Nico pointed out. 

“Or not,” said Annabeth. “Come on, let’s go tell them the new plan.”

*

The debris, dust, and general exposure to the elements that Nico’s renovations were resulting in meant that his cabin had been deemed too unhealthy for Nico to sleep in. 

“Are you sure this is all right?” Nico asked, gazing around the Zeus Cabin. Everything was blindingly white, and the statue of Zeus was so blindingly big. It might just be Nico’s imagination, but Zeus was looking very disapproving. Nico glanced around for the nearest emergency shadow. 

Jason looked up at the statue of his dad as well. 

“It should be,” Jason said cautiously. “I’m sure he’d understand.”

This did nothing to reassure Nico. His own father would definitely take exception to the children of the other Big Three gods sleeping in the Hades cabin. 

“I could always go stay with Coach Hedge,” Nico said.

“What, with Chuck around?” Jason asked incredulously.

“He isn’t that bad,” Nico said. The baby wasn’t awful at all, actually. It had seemed perfectly content to lie smacking its lips and kicking its hooves in Nico’s arms, into which Coach Hedge had essentially shoved his child. Just because Chuck had kicked up an enormous fuss when Jason had tried to have his turn at dandying the kid on his knee.

“Okay, okay,” Jason held his hands up in surrender. “I got it, Chuck’s the greatest baby around.”

“He’s the only baby around,” Nico deadpanned. 

“Well, look, why don’t you try my place out, and if it doesn’t work out then ... lots of other people have offered you bunks.” 

And the thing was, they had. Jake Mason, the Stolls, Clovis, and Katie Gardner from Demeter, who’d horrifyingly remarked that Nico was basically kind of like her step-nephew anyway. He’d experienced a confusing mix of pleasure and terror at the way they’d decided out of nowhere to fling open their doors to him. Nico was pretty sure he was even more depressing to be around now than a year ago; he hadn’t been carrying around the weight of Tartarus then. In any case, he’d awkwardly thanked them, promised to think about it, and then had fled to sit in the strawberry fields and concentrate on not withering the creepers. 

“Yeah, I guess,” said Nico. He didn’t want to sleep in the empty bunks of dead children, if he were entirely honest. Not dead demigods that he’d spoken the funeral rites for; it didn’t seem right. Better empty bunks that had never been filled. He wasn’t planning on actually succumbing to Morpheus, in any case.

On the third night after the infirmary, Nico fell asleep.

He definitely hadn’t meant to. One moment, he’d been reading by moonlight, curled up with a blanket on a soft tuft of grass outside Jason’s cabin (Jason snored, and the statue of Zeus had just got more intimidating as the night wore on). The next, he was in the throes of a nightmare. 

Nico came to, heart pounding in his ears and eyes wide. He felt cold all over, the tacky feeling of Tartarus’ heart beneath his hands and feet receding too slowly. He doubled over and dry-heaved, trembling arms barely holding himself up. 

Despair rose up like his gorge, then rage abruptly swept it all away. Nico was suddenly, incandescently angry. He wanted to smash things to bits, starting with that lousy hellhole and then maybe himself - whatever it took to make this stop. The anger was a relief, actually, burning clear in his veins; it was better than the cloying cold that usually stuck bone-deep after nightmares. Nico sighed, the anger ebbing as weariness set in. He wanted sleep, but dawn was a while off yet and he was likely to fall asleep again if he continued sitting. 

He got up with a groan, wondering if he could convinced the healer on night duty up at the Big House to give him a dreamless sleep again. Nico weighed that against the inevitability of Will finding out and giving him the disappointed face, and decided to head into Zeus Cabin. If Nico actually managed to fall asleep under Zeus’ chilly glare, then surely that same glare would keep the nightmares away.

*

When Nico opened his eyes again, the pale fingers of dawn were creeping across the gleaming white marble floor. He felt remarkably rested, and decided to go get some breakfast before having a morning nap. He felt light and almost like there was a bounce in his step as he walked to the mess pavilion: he’d woken up naturally, from natural sleep in the night. Perhaps the presence of Zeus truly had helped, or perhaps there was a limit of one dream a night. 

Cresting the low swell on which the pavilion stood, Nico almost tripped over lowest of the broad steps that led up to the pavilion proper. Lounging on one of the benches at his cabin’s table was Will Solace, leg stretched out before him and the other propped up on the bench itself. His eyes lit up when he espied Nico. 

“Nico!” Will called, and waved Nico over. They were almost alone in the pavilion; the few other campers slumped over their tables with steaming cups of coffee in front of them barely twitching. Nico gave his own table a wistful glance, before going over to Will. “How are you doing? Nightmares?” 

He’d been prepared to lie, but what came out of his mouth was, “I had one yesterday night.” 

“Oh?” Will drew his other leg up and sat, cross legged, gesturing at the now-empty bench in front of him. “And?”

Nico sat. “And then I went back to sleep,” he admitted, and reached across the table for the platter of fruit. 

Nudging the platter closer, Will said, “Well, that’s a good start.” 

“Yeah,” said Nico. “I think having Zeus glare at me all night long helped.” 

Will’s peal of laughter was sudden and bright, and entirely too loud for the morning. One of the children of Hermes raised her head and gave Nico a dirty look, like it was his fault Will was crazy. Nico shrugged at her and ran his knife around the grapefruit he’d taken.

“I’ll take note of that,” said Will through his laughter.

The grapefruit burst tangy and sharp on Nico’s tongue. Almost as sharply as he said, “Not that it’ll matter once I move back into my cabin.” 

At that, Will’s giggles died out, and his smile turned into a frown. “What was it about?” 

Nico’s hands stilled. “Does it matter?”

“It might.” Will shrugged. “What happens in them might help us track what’s going on. Like - was it as bad as it was that night in the infirmary?” 

Sticky juice ran over Nico’s fingers as he dug too hard into his grapefruit. “No ... no, nothing like it. It was a memory of ... being in that place, but nothing more.” 

“Bad enough, I’m sure,” Will murmured. 

Nico said nothing, busying himself with his breakfast. Will sat silently with him, nursing a cup of coffee, as the sun rose in the distance and the sky grew lighter. 

Presently, Will stirred and said, “You know, it might actually help for you to record what you dream. And compare it with Percy and Annabeth’s. We might find a pattern, something to help us predict what will happen next.” 

Nico grimaced. “They ... did not experience the pit the same way I did. What they saw was only a ... how do I put it? It was only a filtered version of the real Tartarus.” 

“Okay,” said Will solemnly. “Then at least if we track your dreams, we might be able to find a pattern there and ... extrapolate what might happen next. Or see if there are any common themes in your dreams.” 

It all sounded very dubious to Nico, and he said so. “Besides,” Nico added, “Why do you keep saying we?” 

Will sighed. “You, then. You might be able to figure it out. And if you need anyone to talk about it to, you know Annabeth and Percy have the closest experiences to yours.”

“Sure,” said Nico. “If they want to talk about their nightmares at all. Which they probably don’t.”

“They’re good friends,” Will said. “And I remember Annabeth offering.” 

“They could be,” Nico conceded, ignoring Will’s latter remark. He still wasn’t allowing himself to think of them as friends properly yet. 

“They’re people who want to help, Nico,” Will said earnestly. He practically radiated earnest. “And I’m pretty sure they consider you a friend.”

Nico looked up, annoyed. He wanted to say that he didn’t need help, except he so obviously did. And he wanted to say that he didn’t need them as friends either, but he wanted to be, and he had decided to try being more social. “I’m sure they think so too,” Nico said noncommittally. “But I don’t think they’ll be that eager to relive Tartarus when it comes to it, if they haven’t actually had a nightmare. And if I were their friend, I shouldn’t be making them go through that again, right?” 

“Well - I guess - but -” Will blew his cheeks out in annoyance. “Gods, you’re hard to argue with.”

Nico gave him a crooked grin. “No, you’re just bad at it. I’ve argued with Liao - and Kayla - and -”

“Yeah, okay,” Will leaned back on his hands, perceptibly letting the conversation derail. “Fine, it’s just me then. I have no idea how I get anyone to listen to me.” A shadow passed momentarily over his face. It made Nico’s fingers twitch. 

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Nico asked, unsure if he was referring to his own presence at camp in general or at the table. “And arguing ... isn’t the only way to have people listen to you.” 

Will perked up. “True, true. Must be my natural charm, then.”

“It’s your natural _something_ , all right,” Nico muttered, and turned away to grab a bagel from a passing tray. 

*

A week later, they completed the conversion of the windows and construction of the window-seats-cum-beds. Nico was fairly certain that his geokinesis had gotten stronger through that week’s worth of trial and error with the obsidian, and practising the finesse it took to shape the glassy, volcanic rock to his will. It would never come to him as instinctively as it did to Hazel, but now Nico was fairly certain that even if he couldn’t create passages and tunnels in the earth on the fly, he could do a damn good job at sculpting a very specific kind of rock rather than just flinging up the walls of Erebus.

The new windows were nice and deep, supported fully by corbels carved with scenes from the Underworld (Nico had done a bit of sneaky summoning for that, and then had a nice long nap in the sun), and fitted with glass recycled from the old ones, as well as bubbled sheets from the Hephaestus cabin’s attempts at arts and crafts. The mattresses for the beds, too, were recycled from the old coffin beds, as had been the wood. It had been good, solid teak-wood, and looked much nicer repurposed as bedframe and panelling for the bits of the mattresses that extended into the cabin proper. 

On Sunday, Jules-Albert drove Nico, Piper and Annabeth into New York City. 

“Rich kids,” Annabeth muttered, when Jules-Albert erupted out of the ground just outside the protective boundary, together with his vintage Bentley. 

Piper gave her a telling look and said, “Annabeth, your dad’s a college professor.”

“They all return to dust in the end,” Nico offered uncertainly, not entirely sure what was going unsaid. Annabeth laughed, then, and clapped Piper on the back. 

“All right, okay, you’re both right. I’m sorry. Let’s go.” She got into the car, said, “Nice to meet you, Jules-Albert, we need to go into Williamsburg,” and was completely unfazed when Jules-Albert ignored her greeting, threw open the throttle, and zoomed them off at top speed.

In Williamsburg, where Nico would have sworn on the Styx he’d seen an honest-to-god goat in someone’s backyard, they donated his old velvet drapes and bedlinens to a social enterprise that Annabeth had found on the Internet, and bought McDonald’s to bring back to camp. 

There was no need to buy anything, as his new curtains and bedlinens had been woven by the nature spirits, which was a little overwhelming.

“You helped get my Gleeson back,” Mellie the cloud sprite told him when he collected the folded sheets from her, later that day. The look of uncertainty on his face as she’d presented them to him must have said everything. 

Nico tried to protest -- that it had been more Hedge who had helped to get _Nico_ back. 

“No, shush. He’s told me enough -- and Chuck here -” Chuck blew a raspberry and made a face that was either a smile or him passing gas - “wouldn’t have a daddy if it weren’t for you. We pay our debts, Nico di Angelo. My husband’s life for some curtains and bedsheets? Hardly a chore.”

Throughout the week the nightmares had come, but only once a night, and never so bad as it had been in the infirmary. It was still painful, having to relive the naked horror of Tartarus night after night, but Nico mostly woke up with fading sense-memories rather than the confused moments of thinking he was still in Tartarus. Nico was starting to think that Zeus’ beady eye might actually have an effect. He was hoping that his father’s altar might too. 

Nico should have known better to think so, of course. He fell asleep the first night back in his cabin, almost confident in his anticipation of the dream, and had walked through the shadows til he reached the dream realm, and was pulled inexorably into Hypnos’s cabin. 

The silent stillness struck him immediately; it wasn’t the usual sleepy lassitude, with the steady dripping of white Stygian sap lulling even dreamers into deeper sleep, but a tense quietude that put Nico in mind of a snake, coiled and ready to strike, quick as a viper and twice as venomous.

He crept deeper into the cabin, searching out the head counsellor. Clovis was sprawled out on a bean bag, looking for all the world like a little cupid content with the world. His curls lifted a little with each wheezy exhale, but again, there was that disquieting sense of something being fundamentally wrong: of time being out of joint, of the world having skipped half a step to the left. The hair on the back of Nico’s neck were raised, and he groped at his side for his sword. 

Clovis opened his eyes, and they were blood red. “Do you really think you can escape us so easily, little godling?” His lips weren’t moving, but the words buzzed in Nico’s ears anyway. “We’ll be here, waiting for you, forever.”

“No,” Nico whispered to himself, backing away towards the door of the cabin. 

Dread laughter followed him out of the door as he pounded his way across the common, trying to find a way out of the nightmare. After a while Nico was just running, running in a murky, throbbing darkness; a darkness that had a pulse, that he could almost touch. It was all around him, but he was trying to find a way out. The darkness was mocking him, he could feel it, letting Nico push and stumble around like a blind man, letting Nico drown like he was drawing its stickiness into his lungs. 

If death would set him free, Nico thought, then so be it. 

And as Nico, in his dream, closed his eyes, he ran into a pillar as strong as steel and colder than his father’s throne, and woke abruptly up. Silvery moonlight shone into his eyes, and he was shaking, eyes darting around the room; it seemed as though the shadows were held at bay only by the pure light of the moon, and it shook Nico further -- only once before had the shadows seemed his enemy, and that was when he’d been fading. 

He looked reflexively down at his limbs: all there, all thankfully solid, if shivering uncontrollably. The black hopelessness still clung to his mind, weighing him down. Nico tried breathing through it, to little avail. He levered himself up, drawing the blanket up and around him. As Nico groped around the sheets, his fingers found the little panic button. 

Nico hesitated. 

Five minutes later, someone tapped at his door and eased it open. Golden hair glinted in the shaft of light that shone momentarily through the open doorway, before the door was shut with a quiet _snick_. Nico waved the Greek fire flames higher, and Will Solace’s face became clear.

“Oh,” said Nico, already feeling a little less terrified and annoyed at himself for it. “But you’re not on duty today.”

“It’s keyed to me,” said Will candidly. 

“What - why?”

“I thought you’d want to limit the number of people seeing you ... like this.”

“And you decided that you fall into this group of people?” Nico asked waspishly.

Will shrugged, that easy smile on his face never faltering. “I’ve already seen you after a nightmare, probably at the worst. Also, I come bearing hot chocolate.” 

He drew closer to Nico’s window-bed, and sure enough, there was a little mug of good, thick Italian chocolate in his hand. Nico reached automatically out for it.

“Okay,” he said grudgingly, cradling the mug close. “Thank you.”

“So, you want to talk about it?” Will sat down next to Nico. 

“...No,” said Nico, after swallowing some chocolate. He didn’t even want to _think_ about it.

He’d expected Will to push, but Will just shrugged and said, “Okay. We can just sit here, then. You would not believe what happened during my house call on Ares today...” 

*

Chronicling his nightmares helped, to a certain extent. 

It was hard, though, when they all blurred together in their wearying _sameness_ : No matter how many times Nico found himself tumbling with the Phlegethon, or standing before Akhlys in that bone-striking cold, or already trudging grimly through another grotesque landscape, he could never quite convince himself that it was a dream. His brain was - even in slumber- too busy desperately trying to shield itself from the stomach-turning agony that was Tartarus unveiled. And if Nico should ever, in that semi-lucid attempt to claw his way out of the dream world, try to turn the dream aside, then he would wind up back at his site of failure, when the twin giants had espied him despite all his art, and taunting captured him.

He would have to relive that nightmare of nightmares: the tacky feeling of Tartarus' heart pulling stickily at his feet; the cruel dry heat raising blisters on his skin; the constant thumping of Nico's heart in his ears as he slid, trembling, from cover to cover, fear a constant companion as he flinched from monsters' unseeing eyes. Unseeing, of course, until he'd emerged into the open, barren plains of that fell entity's heart, and ultimately failed in his mission. 

The only differences were in how quickly Nico could shake them off; how much time it took for him to distinguish between the dream and the waking world. He dutifully wrote these details down in the spiral-bound notebook that Jason had given him, and looked over it every day to try and find correlations. The only trend he could find was that dreams he tries to direct were harder to slake off, and he despaired. 

*

After that first night in his cabin, Nico had gone back to trying to be nocturnal -- but mankind, even demigods, were not meant to be nocturnal. And so Nico had sunk into Morpheus’ webs helplessly, and opened his eyes again to the dim, shadowy interior of that god’s cabin. 

The wrongness struck him immediately: the way the Stygian sap had stopped dripping; the still, stagnant quality of the air; above all, the distinct lack of that unique somniloquent sense of cozy comfort that enveloped anyone who stepped into Morpheus’ cabin. Having seen this once before, Nico immediately leapt for Clovis and took him by the shoulders, shaking hard.

“Clovis!” He had shouted, and his shout had dropped like pebbles down a yawning chasm of silence: nothing, unsounded, insignificant. “Come out of it!” Nico tried nevertheless, shaking harder. 

Clovis, who usually ran warm, was cold under his touch. It was a creeping coldness that Nico found all too familiar, and Nico redoubled his efforts, looking around all the time for anything, any sign, and broke off the shaking when he saw what he thought was a darker patch of shadows.

Drawing his sword, which Nico found - in the convenient way of dreams - hanging by his side, he advanced on it and snarled, “Out,” slicing down just as, in the corner of his eyes, he saw Clovis’s eyes slit open, terrifyingly red. 

They flashed confused, stormy blue in less than a heartbeat, and the unnaturally still look on Clovis’s face flashed into terror. Nico got halfway through a “Wait!”, hand stretched out, before he was unceremoniously shoved out of Clovis's dream and back into his own.

Nico had landed literally on all fours on a tacky surface that boomed loud in his ears, his sword mysteriously gone, and with a sick feeling in his gut he recognised where he was: Tartarus's heart and surrounded by enemies. Again. 

And so a day after that particular nightmare, Nico found himself leaning up against a pillar in the shaded porch of Morpheus’ cabin.

"I'm helpless in my dreams as well. Me! I'm supposed to control the shadows!"

Clovis, usually so sleepy and amiable, gave him a sharp look. "The shadows are older than you or I or either of our parents, Nico.”

“Well, okay, but you don’t want that to happen to you again, right?”

Clovis was sitting back in a deep rattan lounge chair, eyes unusually alert. He snorted. “Who would? And you say I’ve been, what, possessed before?”

“Once, but that’s only when I’ve … been around. In your dreams.”

“No one else I’m not related to walks into my goddamn dreams, Nico,” Clovis said irritably. 

Nico delicately did not ask about sleep deprivation. “That you know of,” he pointed out instead. 

“Who …” Clovis started, and then stopped. It was pretty common knowledge that Annabeth and Percy had gone through Tartarus together; less so that Nico had too. “Ah, you think?” 

“They might.” Nico shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure they’d have come to talk to me by now, though,” said Clovis. Which was a good point. “But it’s worth a try. I don’t like this at all, Nico.” 

Nico pushed up off the pillar. “You don’t think Tartarus is…?” 

“After this summer? “Who knows.”

“But there haven’t been any prophecies!” 

“We know why.” Clovis raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the Apollo cabin. “Don’t know if you’ve heard from Will –”

“Why would I –” 

“—but word is that none of the Apollo kids have been having prophetic dreams.” Clovis went serenely on. “So we wouldn’t know, would we?” 

Nico spluttered, before slumping back. The sanded wood of the pillar was cool through his t-shirt, in contrast to the last dying spurt of heat before summer died. He turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “So it’s not just Rachel, then. And the Romans would’ve sent us news if they’d found anything in the Sybelline Prophecies…”

“Would they?” 

When he snapped his head up, Clovis merely looked curious. 

“Yes. Well. Reyna would’ve told me, at least.”

“So that’s another problem to be solved, then,” sighed Clovis, then yawned. He put a hand over his mouth. “Just my dreams and yours to go on. Good thing I’m not a capital-h Hero.” 

* 

Nico, unfortunately, had inadvertently put himself in the position of a capital-h Hero, and so the business of solving problems and saving the world.

He’d thought they’d all get at least five years off before having to do it again, though.

And the thought of Tartarus rising, so soon after Gaea's attempt, was ... well, it made Nico feel even deader inside. Like just lying down, rolling over, and waiting for an inescapable fate worse than death to come. He knew, gut deep, right in his bones, that he would not be given a merciful death if caught again: Hades’ favoured son would be the best plaything for those creatures of the pit. 

And so Nico went to Percy and Annabeth, at long last, because Nico had a sense of self-preservation and because this was something that had to be done, and if Tartarus was going to rise again then he'd have to talk to the last living beings who'd been in that shithole. 

They met up under Thalia’s pine, the sun past its zenith and beginning its slow descent into the west. He thought about the train they hitched west, all those years ago, in what seemed now a more innocent time. Apollo in his incarnation as Apollo Phanaeus helping impossibly small and young demigods in their mission to save the world. And now the sun rose and the sun set, but still Apollo was absent: as Apollo Delphinios, as Apollo Acestor, as Alexikakos – the lightbringer they’d need, in the fight that Nico worried may come; the lightbringer and all the rest. 

“So,” Percy said, throwing himself down onto the crisping grass. It rustled beneath him as he stretched out. “Why all this secrecy?” 

Annabeth folded down next to him, quiet and considering, as she leaned back on her hands and looked up at Nico.

Nico shoved his hands into his pockets and muttered, “I want to talk about Tartarus. There’ve been these dreams …”

Feeling his guts churn inside him, and like jittering out of his skin, Nico laid out the situation for Percy and Annabeth, who looked increasingly concerned as he went on. Concerned, but not alarmed. 

“I haven’t had any dreams like that,” Annabeth said. “But I’ve never walked into someone else’s dream either before, so.” 

She tilts a wry grin up at Nico. Nico is unsure what she means by it, but he’s come to trust her good intensions now, so he smiles back. Her grin softens, like she’s read his confusion. Nico puts that aside for later. 

“Me neither,” Percy agrees. “I mean, I get nightmares about that place, like, all the freaking time. Akhlys? Yeesh. And don’t even get me started about where we found the Doors.”

“Please don’t,” said Nico drily. 

Percy huffs out a breath of laughter. “Yeah, okay. I won’t. So … what does it mean? Your dreams?”

Nico didn’t want to say: didn’t want to give word, give form to the dark, miserable thoughts weighing him down.

“He thinks Tartarus may be attempting to rise,” Annabeth said, saving him. “Right, Nico?”

“Yes. It’s too soon,” Nico went on, then stopped himself. “But you … I need to know what happened when you escaped Tartarus.” 

"Well," Percy said, eyebrows knitting together. "I mean, Bob and Damasen ... they finished him off. Right?"

That was a new name to him. “Damasen?” asked Nico, and watched Annabeth’s expression turn dismayed. 

“You never met him?” asked Percy, sounding surprised. “He was … one of the giants. Created in opposition to Ares. A nice giant.” 

“He was more than nice,” Annabeth mumbled, looking down into her lap. Nico thought the tip of her nose might be turning red. 

“Oh,” said Nico, making the logical leaps. “And he helped you when you were in Tartarus.”

Percy paused. Nico could almost see him thinking. “Yeah. He did. But – but it was Bob who brought us to him.” 

“Right,” said Nico. He breathed through it. He was the one who’d ensured that they’d have Bob to protect them. He was the one foolhardy enough to think that a son of Hades would manage to get through Tartarus unscathed. He was. 

Annabeth elbowed Percy, and Percy hurried up, “So basically what happened at the end was that Bob and Damasen joined in the fight against Tartarus and last we saw they were getting him pretty bad.”

“Tartarus _should_ be mostly dissipated again,” Annabeth continued. “He’ll be recovering from the wounds inflicted on him, back to slumbering in his pit and not anywhere close to reforming. Whatever’s in Clovis’s and your dreams … it’s not all him.”

“But you’re not sure.” 

Annabeth and Percy shared a look. 

“No,” said Percy. “I guess we’re not.” 

“I hope so, though,” said Annabeth. “We should ask Chiron. He might know something.”

Nico pressed his lips together. He didn’t distrust the old centaur, but there had never been as many bonds of affection between he and the camp’s activity director as there were for most of the other campers. 

“I’ll send a prayer to my father,” said Nico tightly. “You might do the same.” 

Another look, shared between the two older demigods. 

“Sure,” said Annabeth. “She might be a bit tied up in Olympus, but … well, Percy’s dad –“

“He’s pretty busy rebuilding his palace, but I guess he’d make time for me. I mean, it’s like if Oceanus started creeping on my dreams or something, right?” Percy asked. 

“Thanks,” said Nico with relief. He turned to walk off, but Annabeth called his name.

“Nico. Sleep at night, all right? No –” She put up a hand, forestalling his dismissal. “There’s no use trying to avoid it and having it all build-up into something worse. You’re the one who said that the nightmares with Clovis only happen when you’re really exhausted. Don’t play into your vulnerability.” 

“So it’s a tactical thing,” Nico said. 

She shrugged. “If you like. I’d like to see you with better sleeping patterns, too, but whatever helps you sleep better at night.” 

Nico blinked at her, feeling one side of his mouth tug up. “Right. Yeah, maybe it will.”

*

Forcing himself into some semblance of normal waking hours meant that Nico started noticing things he hadn’t, while entirely preoccupied with his nightmares.

The camp had been rebuilding itself, knitting slowly back together around the spaces left behind from two wars that had come nipping on the heels of the other. Nico had helped to send them on, but he hadn’t known the dead the same way that the other campers had. So it stood out to him, all the more, the way people turned to talk to friends and siblings who were no longer there; the flash of grief on their faces and the brief, painful, pauses when they all but swallowed their words. 

It made him think that now, perhaps, the camp was somewhere he could belong. Selfish, he thought guiltily, but there it was. 

He sent a prayer up (or down, as it were) to his father every night before bed; scraped half his plate (under the beady eye of Will Solace) into the offertory fire every night and muttered “Advice would be welcome, Father,” under his breath. The flames danced and climbed a little higher whenever he did so, Hestia twinkling at him by her hearth. 

And so while they waited for news from the Gods, his days were filled with the strangest of activities; when he wasn’t making his cabin look a little more lived-in with stacks of his slowly accumulating collection of books, Nico was being roped into all sorts of rebuilding activities. 

“We’ve got to get everything ship-shape for the new set of campers,” Katie told him. She had intercepted him at breakfast, while he was still vaguely sub-human, and finagled him into helping out in the vegetable garden. The term ‘garden’ being relative. “And the best time is now, when we’ve got all hands on-board.” Then her eyes went sad and faraway. “Almost all hands, I guess.” 

“Er,” said Nico awkwardly as he helped to tend to the tomatoes. The unruly bastards had taken advantage of Gaia’s Great Shrug – which had collapsed the trellises they were grown on – to try and expand their territory. “Yes.” 

Over the border between the tomatoes and the peas, a small girl by the name of Gayatri made an amused noise. She was restaking the trellises on which those grew – this part of the extensive garden was almost entirely trellises, and looked like a very green maze. 

Nico, stung, turned to say something to her and was arrested by the sight of Gayatri’s strong brown hands striking a stake deep into the earth. A puffy white scar roped its way across one of her forearms: it stood out all the more for the way her muscles were tensing. 

“Doing this makes me feel very satisfied,” she said conversationally, as though she’d felt Nico’s gaze on her. “You know, like I’m stabbing the earth.” Then she looked up and her smile did not reach her eyes. 

He held her gaze. “Me too,” he said, and pulled another trellis part back upright.

An undignified snort drew Nico’s attention back to Katie.

“I knew the two of you would get along,” she said. Reaching over, she put gripped the trellis a few inches over where Nico was holding it and adjusted the angle, before driving it deeper into the earth. “Like that, Nico. Got it?”

“Yeah,” he said, testing its steadiness. 

“Okay, good, I’m going to see what’s happening over with the carrots, then. Good thing we don’t grow our own cereals, huh?”

Nico thought about those annoying cereal spirits that had kept on going on about processed sugar and the travesty that Lucky Charms apparently were. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank the fucking gods.” 

He fell into a dreamless sleep as soon as he lay down that night, worn out from a day’s hard labour and listening to Jason and Percy attempt to out-bro each other over dinner. When next he woke the sun was high in the sky, and his limbs felt heavy. The vague, cobwebby feeling of waking up naturally lingered, as well as a sort of unease that told Nico he’d had a nightmare at some point in the night. Nico helped out in the gardens for at least a little of every day, after that. 

Olympus remained unforthcoming, and Nico was drafted into helping Apollo Cabin replenish their medical supplies.

“I feel like I never see you anymore,” Will told him mournfully, his ridiculous blue eyes all big and faux-pathetic. “You don’t call, you don’t write …”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Nico asked, flipping his panic button in the air deliberately. Will had caught Nico on his way to the estuary, and Nico had somehow ended up walking with him to the Big House. 

Will gave him a fleeting sideways glance. “You do realise that’s not the only reason you need to come and talk to me, right?” 

In his quest not to be thoughtlessly cruel, Nico didn’t point out that Will was making a very big assumption about Nico wanting to interact with him there. He shrugged instead. “I’ve been busy.” 

“Yeah,” said Will. “The vegetable gardens are looking well.” 

Nico looked up at him; there was a teasing grin on his face, and Nico ducked his head, feeling his face grow warm. 

“I like the work,” confessed Nico. “Working with my hands. It helps with the, you know. At night.”

“Oh yeah?” Will stretched his arms out behind his head and let out an ‘oof’ when his back let out a truly alarming crack. “Well, good then. Because we’ll need your hands in there too.” 

“What, rolling more bandages?” 

“Nah, we’re making salves and poultices to keep now. For the field medicine packs, too.”

Nico’s eyebrows rose at that. “There are field medicine packs?” Those would certainly have helped, during the wars.

They crossed the footbridge over the burbling creek as Will laughed. “Well, in the old days it was just ambrosia squares, but, you know. Eat too much of those and you risk going up in flames. So we’ve been experimenting with alternatives. Learnt some stuff from the Romans while they were camping here.”

“Huh.” Nico pondered that for a bit, while they laboured up the hill. “And they won’t explode in my face?”

“Oh ye of little faith!” declared Will dramatically, clapping a hand to his chest. “I’ll show you.” 

The one showing him turned out to actually be Liao, while Will pottered around in the background, seeing to various kids who’d got caught in the crossfire of Hermes and Hecate Cabins’ prank war. Jason ducked in at one point, as well, for climbing-wall related sprained ankle.

Nico sunk into the motion of pestle against mortar, the rhythm of mixing pastes and powders and tinctures carefully together. They smelled remarkably inoffensive, too, and when he said as much to Kayla, who’d set up next to him, she’d laughed. He looked up at that, and startled at the golden afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows and gilding her hair. Time had passed quickly.

“You wouldn’t believe the stink the first version of this dressing made when Liao first tried it,” said Kayla. “We had to open all the windows way wide and then the wind almost blew over the beaker it was in. Will literally dove across the table to catch it. Which obviously put his face closer to it.”

Nico laughed at that, too, and shook his head. “What a hero,” he said drily, and bent his head to smell the dressing he was mashing into a finer paste. The scent of freshly crushed lavender wafted into the air. 

“You know it,” Kayla said with a wink, and went back to her work. 

The evening breeze grew cooler, and warm lamps were lit as the sky dimmed outside, as the stoppered bottles and wooden lacquered boxes made by Hephaestus Cabin were filled and stacked as Nico and Kayla worked in tandem. Finally, the dinner gong went, and Kayla started putting away her things with a sigh of relief. Nico cracked his neck and winced, shaking out his arms. 

“Good workout, eh?” asked Kayla, directing him with a gentle hand on his elbow to the sink. 

Nico rinsed his mortar and pestle, and his hands clean. “I might get tennis elbow from this.”

Kayla laughed at that, coming to stand next to him to wash out her tools. “Yeah well, try doing this for … oh, a week straight, now.”

“Isn’t there anyone else to help? Other than your siblings, I mean.” 

“Who’d we ask? We need people with patience and steady hands.”

Having stacked his things in the drying rack, Nico turned to give her a sceptical look. “And you chose me?”

“Well!” Kayla shrugged, and walked off towards the door, untying her apron as she did so. “More or less.”

Nico followed suit, and tossed his apron over the same chair Kayla had. “What do you mean?” he asked, even though he had a fairly good idea already. 

“Our Glorious Leader,” said Kayla, flapping her hand at the far end of the infirmary, where Will was sat kicked back on a chair, chatting to a little, freckled girl from Hermes Cabin. “Told us that he’d get someone to help, and left, and then came back with you after an hour.”

“Ah,” said Nico. He had the weirdest feeling Kayla was laughing at him on the inside. “Um.”

“Yup,” said Kayla, popping the ‘p’. “So you’re sitting with us for dinner, right?”

Nico looked at her, and the dining pavilion, rearing up in the near distance. It was lit by the roaring fire and sconces set into the fluted columns; the long tables already looked to be filling up: all but three of them. Percy and Jason were both absent from their own tables. 

“Sure,” he said, and smiled shyly back when Kayla grinned at him.

The Apollo kids slid down to make space for Kayla and him when they arrived. After filling their plates and conducting the usual libations, Nico asked, “Why the need for all those field packs now, anyway?”

“Good question!” said Will from behind him. Nico barely stopped himself from jumping. “Budge up.” 

Nico grudgingly obliged. Will wedged his ridiculously lanky body into the space between Nico and the next golden-haired Apollo kid. 

“Chiron thinks that monster activity will, you know, tick up again when the weather turns. And the satyrs will need them when they’re getting the new demigods. People turn thirteen all the time, anyway. Plus, Jason’s going to need them while he’s doing his thing.” 

“Right.” 

“Anyway,” said Will, slamming his palms into the table top. The table hushed momentarily. “Enough shop talk, gods. Let’s talk about something else.” 

There was a sudden tumult as the Apollo kids all rushed to fill the gap, talking cheerily over each other, and Nico sat quietly, watching their short, glimmering firefly lives burn fiercely in the night. 

*

The day after he’d been introduced to the joys of making medicine, Nico woke up – a dream summons from Hades ringing in his ears – and got hastily dressed. The weak, watery light coming into the room told him that it was early yet; too early for the breakfast nymphs, even. 

Outside, there was no one about, not as Nico crossed the common quietly and made his way into the amphitheatre, where he had performed the funeral rites. 

It was a cool morning, but the arena was colder; Nico could see his breath hanging in the air before him. At the epicentre of where the funeral pyre had been, his father stood. He was dressed in his Greek robes, this time round, and had his hands tucked casually into pockets. 

“Father!” greeted Nico, hoping he didn’t sound as started as he felt. “This is … a surprise.” 

“Is it?” said Hades, raising a dark eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought so, considering the prayers you’ve been sending down lately.”

Nico blinked. “Oh,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. “Yes. Of course.” His head still felt a little fuzzy from sleep, and he shook it to try clearing his thoughts.

“I apologise for the hour,” said Hades, dark humour colouring his voice. “But it’s only in this, ah, liminal time, that I can make my appearance here. And it’s a little crowded in here at dusk. Here.” He held out a hand, and a to-go cup of coffee materialised. 

Nico took it suspiciously, before laughing when he saw the McDonald’s logo emblazoned on the cardboard. “Thank you, Father,” he said, before taking a sip. 

Hades’ lips twitched. “Well, to answer your unasked question – I am here as a personal summons.” 

A mouthful of coffee almost went down the wrong pipe when Nico finally worked that out and spluttered. “But - Father - there are still monsters out there, and demigods will have to go fight them, and then I’ll have to perform the rites -”

“You seem very confident in your friends’ abilities,” Hades observed sardonically.

Nico flushed. “Or, I could help them. I should be helping.”

Hades regarded Nico coolly. “The monsters are laying low now. Licking their wounds before re-emerging. It’s,” Hades waved a hand carelessly, “the way of these things. And your help is needed in my demesne, son. There is ... much that needs to be set right, and too few hands as it is.”

It wasn’t that Nico didn’t want to help; he liked being needed, liked that his father was stating this so plainly. But there was the harvest and the field medicine packs and his cabin, and he didn’t want to think about the camp, already weakened, having to deal with monsters without him around. 

“Besides,” Hades continued, “you could hone your powers further. Learn to draw strength from the shadows.” 

Nico stared. “I can - I - but, Father, I almost faded. And I’m not ... I do not want to be so near the pit.”

Hades looked grave. “I know, and that is why you have to learn to work with the shadows now. Not to command them, but to ask them. There’s a trick to it. And to the second ...” his face grew troubled, and Nico felt his stomach turn cold. “We need to relook the security of Tartarus. I’m sorry to ask this of you, boy, but you are the best suited for this. Even I have not been into that pit.” 

Nico took a step back. “I thought you wanted me to be happy,” he said in a small voice. 

“I do,” said Hades, and closed his eyes briefly. “Son - I am not asking you to go in. Never. But for you to map it out for me - and tell me how you got in. That ... that you did it so easily was ... a mistake. It cannot happen again.” He spread his fingers, palm up, and the shadows around his feet deepened, like he was pulling them from under the bleachers. To Nico’s eye, it seemed a little like they were writhing. “The shadows do not lie easy, still.” 

“That ...” Nico trailed off, uneasy. “That can’t be.”

Hades shrugged eloquently. “Disturbances leave ripples long after the original event is over. But when something sapient lies at the centre of the ripples ... all caution is needed. I do not think you could rest easy knowing this, my son.” 

“I don’t rest easy anyway,” Nico muttered rebelliously at his own feet. Hades was right, though, as much as it tore at him; for once in his life, he didn’t want to leave a place after some time. And yet, knowing that not all was well in his father’s vast realm, and thinking back to his first nightmare in the cabin, with fat, sleepy, comforting Clovis suddenly turned all evil ... he knew he had to go. 

There was something sad in his father’s black, empty eyes when Nico looked back up. “I know,” said Hades, and reached out to put a cold hand on Nico’s head. “Do not worry overmuch, Nico. What afflicts you and your friend … it is a wisp of malice. Malice that should not be able to go in the shadows, and so we have work there to do. But I will do my best to shield you.” 

Nico sighed. “All right. I’ll come, but ... give me some time to settle things here, Father.” 

“Of course. A week, then.” Then Hades smiled, or at least his mouth pulled to one side. “And it will still be summer, technically, for a fortnight or so. So, you know…”

Well, thought Nico, a little less heavily. At least his stepmother wouldn’t be around for some of it. 

*

The week passed too quickly, in a blur of gardening and medicine-making. Nico found himself wandering around the Camp grounds in his free time, feeling absurdly as though he were saying his goodbyes. 

His mood must’ve been obvious, as Jason found him one day, moping at the mouth of Zephyr’s Creek. There were still a few stands of lilies in bloom there, lingering after the most recent rainstorm. Nico wondered what Persephone thought of Zephyr lilies, and his mood got sourer.

It was at that moment that Jason descended and landed in an artful sprawl next to him.

“I hate it when you do that,” said Nico without turning to look at him. 

“I know.” The smug was audible. 

They were silent for a while, before Nico broke it. 

“Well?” 

He heard the sound of cloth rustling against grass next to him, before Jason sighed. “Are you planning on something painfully heroic and self-sacrificing? Because you remember what happened the last time you did that?”

The irony made Nico laugh, and once he started he found he couldn’t stop. 

“Whoa, Nico, man,” Jason shifted forwards to touch him. Nico scooted backwards, wiping at his eyes. “You’re kinda – hysterical? I – should I get Piper? She’d know what to do. I should go get Piper.” He rose onto his haunches, to fly off. 

“No!” Nico burst out. “No, it was just … ironic.” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m … my dad’s summoned me.”

The widening of Jason’s eyes were magnified by his stupid glasses. “HE WHAT?” 

“Oi,” said Nico, and hiccupped. “Watch it.”

“But WHY WOULD HE –”

“Look, he wouldn’t if it weren’t necessary, okay?” said Nico, a little annoyed now. “He needs help, I’m uniquely qualified to give it, end of story. And I’ll have his protection.” 

Jason looked a little dubious. “Well, okay then. I’m probably not gonna come visit, though.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “I didn’t want you to anyway.” 

And that, Nico would have thought, was that, except that it seemed like _everyone_ felt like it was necessary to interrogate him the night before he was due to leave. 

Percy and Annabeth cornered him at the entrance to the amphitheatre, full of questions. 

“Well,” Percy said after Nico had given them the summary. “Better you than me.” 

Annabeth smacked him, and Nico turned away to hide his smile. 

“You take care down there, all right?” Annabeth told him. “Iris-call me if you can.” 

“Good luck, man,” said Percy, and held his fist out. Nico sighed, but obliged him. 

And later, as he was leaving, Piper at the edge of the woods, looming over him. 

“Jason told me.”

“I thought he would,” said Nico evenly. He wasn’t even lying. 

“Have you told Hazel?”

“Ah,” said Nico, and kicked himself mentally. “I … will?”

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “You’d better. And – good luck.” With that, she walked off, leaving Nico feeling a little discombobulated. 

Back in his cabin, Nico Iris-called Hazel, but she appeared to be in the midst of a war game and galloping atop Arion. 

“WHAT?” she screamed, hair whipping about her as the clanging of clashing spears and spathas reverberated in the air. 

“I SAID,” shouted Nico into the rainbow, feeling vaguely ridiculous. “I’M GOING TO BE DOWN UNDER FOR A WHILE.”

He felt a little bad when she reined Arion into an abrupt halt and Arion made an undoubtedly rude grunt. 

“YOU WHAT?” Hazel shouted, and fended off a stab. 

“YOU HEARD ME,” bellowed Nico, and then said, “OI!” when a hapless legionnaire accidentally thrust a spear through his projection. “TAKE CARE, LITTLE SISTER.” He hurried on, then reached out and destroyed the rainbow, feeling a little bit like a coward.

*

Nico woke early the next morning, lingering over his coffee and breakfast, before making his way to Chiron’s office to let him know that Nico was leaving.

The old centaur regarded him soberly. “And when will you return to the Camp?”

Nico shrugged. “I think it’s an ‘as long as it takes’ kind of arrangement.”

Chiron sighed. “Quite. It isn’t so good for a mortal to spend so much time in the Underworld, Hades’ son or no.”

Biting back his first few retorts, Nico said, “Not quite mortal.”

“No,” Chiron agreed. “But mortal enough.” Then he sighed again, and held up a hand in conciliation. “It is your life, as ever, of course. Safe travels, Nico, and remember that the Camp is a home for you now, also.”

That took the wind out of Nico’s sails. He inclined his head silently, and made his way back to his Cabin to pick up his travel pack. 

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Will was leaning up against a tree with his arms crossed and a frown creasing his face when Nico got to the edge of the woods.

“I heard from Annabeth. You’re not shadow-travelling?” he asked. 

_I’ve had a nanny_ , Nico didn’t say. _She was a harpy and still she didn’t have anything on you._ “No, actually, I was just going to open up a crack in the earth,” he flicked the clenched fingers of his right fist open, just to see Will twitch, before turning his hand palm down, “and drop straight through.” 

Will’s eyebrows jumped straight up and he looked at the patch of innocent grass that Nico’s hand had ended up pointing at. “You’re joking,” he said a little nervously.

“Yes,” Nico agreed expressionlessly. 

“Fuck,” Will exhaled, his mouth twitching. “I hate it when you do that.”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “And I hate it when you do the whole nanny thing.”

“I’m a _healer_ , gods!” Will exclaimed, throwing out his arms in frustration. “And you’re still --”

“I’m fine; it’s been a month, Solace.” 

“A month isn’t nearly enough - not after all that energy you expended,” Will argued. 

Eyeing him, Nico tapped his fingers impatiently against his thigh. “I think Hades would know better than you,” he said drily. “My father wouldn’t - contrary to popular opinion - risk my physical ... cohesion unnecessarily otherwise.” 

“Fine!” Will said, raising his hands in defeat. “Fine, at least I tried. Have fun tidying up the Underworld, or whatever -- here,” he tossed something over to Nico.

Nico hid his flinch at Will’s unintended reference to Bob the Titan with a step back to let the mystery object smack smoothly into his palm. It looked like a river stone, worn smooth by running water, mottled red and orange and gold. Long shadows stretched out across the floor of the glade as the afternoon turned into dusk, but the little pebble felt warm. Nico looks up in question. 

“It’s a sunstone,” Will said, looking a little embarrassed. “I mean, actually a sunstone. A solar stone? It’s got some sunshine saved up in there. Just thought - if you needed a little light down there.”

Nico’s lips twitched. He was starting to find the horror and dread with which demigods regarded his father’s realm amusing. “We have glow worms down there,” he said, closing his fingers around the pebble. “You know, squishy colourless slugs that line the walls.”

He thought Will looked a little green. It was refreshing to be friends with such a queasy demigod, especially as it made winding Will up so much easier, though he was turning quite green.  


p>“Joking! But we have torches, like the ones on my cabin. And ... well, the Underworld makes its own light.”

“You make it sound so appealing,” Will said, fidgeting. 

“Yeah, well,” Nico shrugged. “It’s home, in a way.” 

That made Will’s face twist up, and Nico sighed inside. Of course it’d be anathema - especially to a healer - that the realm of the dead would feel in any way like home to someone alive. But there it was, and the light was fading quickly. 

“Well, I’ve got to go.” Nico raised the hand with the pebble in it. “Thanks for the thought, Will.” 

Will raised a hand in farewell, and Nico melted into the deepening shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> Next! Nico's Underworld (Unpaid) Internship! And a visit to Camp Jupiter! Also, Winter Solstice/Saturnalia/Christmas at Camp Half-Blood! Maybe I'll even finish writing the next part by this Christmas!
> 
> I'm [here](http://forochel.tumblr.com) at tumblr. Occasionally. Come bug me about this fic! The more pressure to write the better...


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